Park Yoon-Ho producer spoke about actor Park Jihoon and the 'Danjong' he portrayed.
Park Yoon-Ho, producer of the film The King's Warden (director Jang Hang-jun, distributed by SHOWBOX, produced by Onda Works Co., Ltd.·BA Entertainment Co., Ltd.), spoke about the film's 'Danjong' and the actor Park Jihoon who portrayed him in a written interview with OSEN.
When asked what first caught his eye when he first encountered the scenario, Park Yoon-Ho producer said, "Danjong is a tragic figure who has already been dealt with multiple times in Korean narratives. So what was most important in choosing this work was rather, 'Is this just another Danjong story? Or is it a story that asks a completely different question?'"
He added, "What struck me most when I first read the scenario, and what I thought needed adaptation and supplementation, were not the king at the center of power but the perspectives of individuals who had to survive on the margins of power. Rather than repeatedly explaining Danjong's tragedy, this work seemed to offer the freshness of viewing it through cinematic imagination by focusing on the choices and emotions of the people who lived through that era and the relationships left behind in their silence."
He explained, "As a producer, I wanted this film to be seen not as merely reproducing historical facts but as a film that gives the opportunity to think from a slightly different distance, placing emphasis on delicately building the texture of emotions rather than on the scale of events."
He particularly spoke about actor Park Jihoon, who received praise for successfully conveying the deep emotional range of the young former king Danjong. Producer Park Yoon-Ho said, "The Danjong I imagined was closer to a human being who, at an age far too young, had to bear the fractures of a confusing world, rather than the commonly consumed image of a 'fragile symbol of tragedy.' I thought the boy's emotions and silence, pushed into circumstances without choice, were more important than the status of being a king."
He recalled, "So what was most needed from the actor playing Danjong was not performative acting but a face that endures. Even without overly displaying emotion, I wanted an actor in whom you could see what he was bearing within." He added, "In that regard, the finished Danjong portrayed by actor Park Jihoon was much more restrained and, at the same time, firmer than we had imagined during production."
About actor Park Jihoon, he said, "What was impressive was that he looked like someone who had passed through those situations rather than someone who was 'acting' the emotions scene by scene." He praised, "So when audiences said, 'He is Danjong himself,' I thought that was not simply a matter of synchronicity but the result of the actor making the character's time and emotions entirely his own."
[photo] Provided by SHOWBOX
[OSEN]